Rockin Jump Review

Its the day we’ve all been waiting for!  SCHOOLS OUT!!  And chances are, after about three-and-a-half hours, you’ll be going stir crazy at home and counting down until school starts again.  Not to worry….we’ve got suggestions to keep your littles entertained and your sanity intact!
Things to do with the Kids out of School….Here’s one of our favorites….

Rockin Jump

Options to beat the heat are a major selling point in our book.  Its just too hot to do much outside in Bangkok, and yet you need to burn off that energy somewhere!  Rockin Jump is a the perfect outlet for little ones needing to run wild and mommas needing to sip a diet coke in the blessed air conditioning!

A massive indoor trampoline park makes up this great urban playground for kids.  Perfect entertainment for your little ones “bouncing off the walls” to your teens needing an alternative to the Nintendo!  Purchase a pass and let them jump to their hearts content!  Sections include a dodge ball zone for interactive play with other bouncers, a runway (supervised by staff) for launching yourself into a giant foam pit, a basketball court perfect for dunk competitions and free space for the aspiring gymnast to turn cartwheels!  Guaranteed, you’ll have no arguments at bedtime – little ones will be worn out after a couple hours at Rockin Jump.

Also recommended for group functions.  Leaving this summer? Plan a family friendly going away party or corporate event!  Perfect for birthday parties.
350 baht/hour

Open Monday – Friday 2:00-8:00pm
Saturday & Sunday 10:00am – 8:00pm
Socks are provided as part of admission

Check out this summer camp option for your little wild ones!!

6th Birthday Dollhouse Party

A long and time honored tradition culminated last week.  We celebrated the fifth and final little-girls-6th-birthday-housewarming-party of our family!  Turning 6 is a big deal around here.  30 years ago, my grandfather (who is now 97 and watching this tradition carried on to the next generation) started something special that left an indelible memory.  A beautiful Victorian Dollhouse was toiled over, constructed, adorned, painted and presented to me on my 6th birthday.  My mother jokes that the box they purchased with instructions suggested 40 hours for assembly.  Grandpa put in 80!!  Using Grandma’s earring studs to create tiny door knobs and and laboring in his tool shed to perfect and improve the design, his masterpiece exceeded the manufacturers labeled photograph and the structure has withstood now three-decades of play.  Each of my sisters received the same gift on their 6th birthday developing a little “neighborhood” in the playroom of my childhood home.

C took on the baton and purposed to create the same special memory for each of our girls on their 6th birthday.  Abi, Britain, Izzy Evie and now Gigi each have dollhouses that hopefully they’ll get to pass on to their daughters some day!  We could have a whole little “village” if all the big sister dollhouses weren’t packed up in a POD back in the USA!!  🙁

I told her she can stop growing now!  6 years old is old enough!  Have loved every minute of your little-girlhood my Gigi!  Your spunk and sass and sweetness.  I love that chocolate still works to bribe you to take a nap with me and that you still love to sneak down in the middle of the night sometimes to snuggle.  I love your obsession with hairbows and high-heels and lime drinks and bubble tea.  Our coffee mornings when all the big kids are at school and the way your hand fits just right in mine when we walk to pick them up!  Your crazy mess of curls and the Fancy Nancy quote you say to me every day that keeps me wrapped around your little finger…..”I adore you….really, I do!”
I adore you too my girl.  Happy 6th birthday to our little hot mess!

This sweet little dollhouse cake brought to us by Cupcakelicious U!  Yum, yum, yum!!  What a masterpiece of its own.  Delicious lemon cake and cream cheese frosting under all that fondant amazingness!  And the best part – they deliver!  Bangkok friends – check them out for your next event!!

Man Up! Coming of Age

Nearly 2 years ago, we promised Tristan a “wilderness adventure” for his 13th birthday.  This wild-at-heart-man-child of ours is most at home away from home.  This apartment in Bangkok just isnt a natural habitat to his free spirit and we’ve longed to be able to set him loose and see him push his limits and rise to a challenge!  That opportunity came in the form of a mountain trecking endeavor with his dad and a team of men that we work with. The team was going to lead a training in Nepal which made it easy to tack on an extra week to summit the Annapurna in the Himalayan mountains!

We’re talking big-boy adventure here!  Similar to the Everest base camp climb!  ROCK (climbers magazine) names the Annapurna the “deadliest mountain in the world“!  Even tho no one is allowed further than the base camp anymore, the climb to ABC was no small feat!!  Tristan left a kid and returned a man….because there aint’ no way his momma could have done it and he has earned a badge of honor, the respect of everyone else on the trail, bragging rights and a great sense of accomplishment!

The rugged terrain took their trecking party of 7 up the 4,130 meters of the Annapurna mountain to the base camp, which is now the highest point which climbers are allowed to summit – because it is so dangerous beyond that point and there have been too many deaths!  I restrained the urge to google too much information about the treck until I knew they were safely down, but when I did, I came across crazy stories that would have left me with an acute case of insomnia had I known!  The guys passed “memorials” on the way honoring climbers who didnt make it back down.

Every day, from the crack of dawn, they hiked for hours through blazing heat, rain and then snow to make it to their destination.  Nights were spent in tea houses which were un-heated, but provided water for showering and a hot meal.  Daily hurdles included rope bridges to cross, creeks to wade through, altitude sickness, headaches, oxygen deprivation, rocks to climb, cold to press through and mental stamina and true grit!

We didn’t hear from the guys the entire trip aside from a spotty attempted phone call and a couple of text letting his momma know he hadn’t fallen off the mountain.  C tells me that Tristan was, by far, the youngest guy on the trail!  And can I just say its a good thing his momma wasn’t there!!  I for sure would have gotten in the way of him summiting.  The guys tell us that the last day, they had to get up at 4am to begin the final hike in order to summit at sunrise.  Tristan at this point had an especially acute case of altitude sickness and was not doing well at all.  They guys all pushed and prodded, encouraged and antagonized, whatever necessary to keep him putting one foot in front of the other.  Apparently he was delirious and kept asking C if he could “just lay down in the snow and sleep for a minute?”

Oh my momma heart!!!  Had I been there you can bet that 1) who am I kidding, I would have died the first day and never gotten that far, and 2) I would have been the weakest link in the chain that pulled him up those last miles!  Tristan persevered and conquered the Annapurna trail!!

The summit has a helicopter that rescues climbers 4-5 times a day who just pass out and cant make it any further.  Im pretty sure Tristan was on the brink of a fast track out of there, but he continued on and made the descent with the guys and bought his Tshirt to wear with pride!

Annapurna checked off the bucket list!!  Such a cool father-son adventure!  And, we’ve told him that he’s now obligated to do it again with Eden in 13 years…..because Im pretty sure C is gonna be too old by that point to attempt it again with son #2!  So insanely proud of these guys!!